Sweet Dreams
by Ever Lasting Night Life
Summary: Tifa's an investigator working for the local police, Cloud's a vampire. What will happen when a freak accident causes these two to meet?


**Sweet Dreams**

If this wasn't a dream, what the hell was it? That was what was being told to the old woman as she sat in the armchair, facing everyone else, pity etched onto the face that spoke of time. This wasn't a dream, nor was it a nightmare but a vision of what the future could look like if she didn't save the world, yet what was she supposed to save the world from. _"Vampires?" _The old voice was hoarse, broken and split in several places. It was a place in her dark chest of wonders. Yet she knew she was no vampire hunter. So what the hell was she going to do against the legions of the undead? What the hell was going to happen now? Two eyes opened upon the world to see a ceiling that showed a sun radiating in its beauty around the light. Tifa had never decorated her room since her mother passed away. The thought had crossed her mind but never had she placed the brush upon the surface of the wall, nor on the ceiling. Some people said she was lazy but what did they know? They didn't have a loved one that had stayed so close to protect you pass away. A hand drifted down her thigh as she sat up rather groggily, rubbing at her eyes, causing her hand to move away from the thigh which was what she wanted since it brought back some unwanted memories of school, some she had tried to block out but the memories refused to go away, to leave her alone. Yet a sip of the water from beside her bed drove them away temporarily as she almost nearly rejoiced in its taste.

_Seifer had tried to gain her attention, like he always tried with the girls. And like what he always did, he kept saying that she was beautiful untainted, not a stain upon her and yet she still kept pushing him away, not really wanting to be bothered since she was trying to focus upon her revision for the exam that was coming later in the day. She had walked back to class and near enough remained there for the rest of the day until her parents, not wanting to tell them about the unwanted advances from a boy that she didn't really like, picked her up. Then the same thing happened the next day, yet what disturbed her even more was that she had noticed him following her around, even when she went to class, he was there. She had to talk to him, get him to stop and leave her alone. That didn't go so well as she thought it would. He gave her a blank expression before walking off, not taking another look back at her. Everything from then on seemed almost jumbled and rather confusing. People gave her hideous looks, even the people who were supposed to be her friends. Only Aerith had seen the danger of what was happening. No one else did so why were they now victimising her for it? She shook it off, not wanting to think about it. Then the end of school came. She had to walk home today since her parents couldn't make it because of work, yet she felt his eyes upon her as soon as she left the building. She ignored it, not wanting to really face him at this moment in time yet he caught up with her. He actually caught up with her just as soon as she made it to the woods, the quickest way home as it were. _

"_Tifa…I just want to let you know that I have been in love with you for a long while," there was an unfamiliar look in his eyes, one that she had never seen before, one that spoke of lust as he seemed to take in her developed figure. She had slapped him, slapped him for looking at her in that way. She wasn't a common whore, not like the one's that he seemed to hang around with near almost every day. Trying to slap him again, she nearly gasped as she realized that he had caught her wrist and was holding it in an iron grip, one that she had never felt before. Strange, what you came to think about people was never always near to the truth. Yet what also shocked her was when he kissed her, trying to put his own tongue into her mouth. She pushed at him, trying to get away, refusing to obey the commands of her own body. She had run through the woods, not stopping, not until she tripped over. Then the sound of rustling came from behind her, almost as if there were more than just one person following her now. Standing up, she continued running, ignoring the pain until she heard the scream. The rather unearthly scream that had shocked her shocked her completely into staying still. Yet someone was still following her. She had to move, she knew that but she couldn't. In fact, it seemed almost impossible to even breathe. Something was still there and it had done something to Seifer, something that shouldn't have happened._

_Then the next day had been the worst. She hadn't told her parents about what happened yet rumours were spreading around the school. People were even whispering to each other in the examination room until they were told to be quiet by the teacher. Seifer had disappeared and she had been seen with him before he disappeared but who the hell saw her with him? Who the hell was watching them both and didn't even bother to help when he had tried to come on rather forcefully to her? Her fists clenched slightly as she looked down at the paper on English Language, trying to ignore what had happened and what was going on right now. Even if she had told her parents what had happened, she would have still been forced to endure all of this. As soon as the exam ended, she waited to be excused before collecting her stuff quickly and walking off in a hurry out of the building, pushing past people who had the nerve to stay in front of her at this time, bothering her with their loitering and gossiping. This was the way it was going to be now, what she had to put up with for the rest of her life. Being rumoured to be involved with the disappearance of one of the most popular boys in school. _

Then again, she could also remember that they had found his body not long after she had left the school. The details were rather sketchy over the news but it had been reported that he was completely cold now, and not the coolness of normal death but the coolness of loosing your blood as you died from a death that was induced by blood loss. Picking up her logbook, she took one look out of the window. The apartments she was staying in was rumoured to be haunted and on one or two occasions she had seen the figure of a boy with oddly shaped blonde hair wandering the halls by night, almost as if he was lost. It was a gift she had ever since an accident not so long ago, one that involved her falling off of a rather tall building, the height capable of killing anyone who was foolish enough to climb to the roof and fall from it. However, she couldn't remember how she got up there, nor could she remember how she had survived the fall but it left a scar with her, a gift that could frighten anyone. The suffering afterwards from the strange accident had been great, causing her to resort to her hurting herself by trying to cut something out that hadn't been there. It wasn't long before Aerith found her, the front door being foolishly left open. She remembered the smell of the place vividly. It stunk of smoke and alcohol where she nearly tried to get herself to pass out once from drinking too much.

Yet, it wasn't long after that she was admitted into hospital for trying to bite through her own tongue when she thought no one was looking, to allow herself to bleed to death or choke on her own blood. Her tongue had been padded and stitched together to stop her from trying it again. However, she was more stubborn than what people perceived of her and so she kept trying, wanting to tear at the padding first before the stitches. That only led her to having the padding reinforced and to be sedated. She was also admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a month to stop her from trying to commit suicide until she was released from what she thought was a completely new Tifa Lockhart. The old Tifa was still inside her though. She had been diagnosed with suffering from a mental breakdown where it was possible to try and harm yourself in so many different ways, but what the hell did the doctors really know? They only looked after her so that they could earn a bit more money but at the end of the day, that was the way that it always was in a place like Hollow Bastion. Running a brush through her long, dark hair she couldn't help but put her fingers to her lips, where she had been touched…no, _kissed_ by the boy who had disappeared, the boy who now didn't even share a face in her own mind. His image was blurred and so it seemed as if after all these years, she was finally moving on. Or perhaps it was the influence of something else? Something particularly alien to her? She knew that by what she continuously told herself, she sounded as if she had visited another shrink to talk about her problems as they were and yet she knew that, that wasn't possible. She hadn't visited one in three years, not since her breakdown anyway.

Then again, just by getting ready for work, thinking not only of the day ahead but of other things that she needed to sort out such as the stack of bills that had been piled up rather neatly for her this morning, anyone could sound almost like anything just to take their minds off the life that they may have shared with someone or stuck through it on their own. She worked in investigations for the local police department, currently working on a case that seemed rather familiar to her. The victim was a man in his mid thirties, completely drained dry of his blood. Drained almost exactly like the boy from so long ago. In one way, this investigation was just going to be another excuse to touch the bottle after it was all finished but it was also going to help her with keeping on track with rent. Yet she also held small jobs around the office too, just to pay the landlord. Now she was looking at a different place, hoping to find one where she could just pay for it in hard cash with no mortgage or rent needed. Yet it was going to take her a while to come up with the money. The elevator nearly went without her and when she reached it, she was nearly out of breath, and the precious essence that she somehow knew she was going to need for the day. And yet, she wasn't alone. A blonde male was leaning against the one side of the elevator, his oddly probing blue eyes seeming to look straight into her soul which made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She turned away quickly, a flush appearing on her pale cheeks. The male was certainly attractive, looking near almost feminine in a sense of what seemed like pure irony when compared to his rather stoic expression. He wore a vest top that was only supported by one strap, making him seem as if he had just got out of a fight and his jeans spoke for themselves, showing small rips just below the kneecaps.

"Keep on looking," He said rather coldly and she flushed a crimson colour when she realised that it had been a good while since she started near staring at him. That was something that she had to try and avoid in the future, she knew that and she also knew that the next time she would do that, it would be the one to cost her life and yet she had no clue how she actually knew that. And so she turned away, not looking at the blonde as she finally got off on the ground floor and yet she could still feel his eyes upon her, looking at her oddly almost like a boy from so long ago. In fact she thought that she almost heard him speak and yet it was possibly either too quiet or just a figment of her imagination since she couldn't pick up on what it was. The outside seemed cold, abrupt in the flow of the wind and the town itself seemed like every other morning, rather almost derelict of the life that it actually harboured. Wrapping her arms around her so as to pull her jacket in close around her, she walked off down the street, pushing her way through the double doors of the police station, reaching her own desk and putting her bag down on top of it.

The files themselves were in no particular order and yet she didn't really care. In these files was something's that shouldn't have been pulled up about her, something's that were meant to be hidden away and yet since this new victim had been found by a homeless person in one of the alleyways that weren't so far from the entrance to the woods. In fact the man had almost been scared out of his wits by the site, almost as if he had seen something that he had refused to speak about at first. And yet that was the way that it was when it came to the strange cases she had to deal with. It was a common thing for the psycho's that she had put behind bars in her time to dress up as something rather unnatural to scare people off or scare the victim in general. That was just the way things were now. And yet she so hoped that everything would change for the better, yet she knew she would be out of a job and most probably on the streets. However, sacrifices were meant to be made for the greater good weren't they? That was what her father used to tell her before he passed away from the disease that was age, leaving her now in the arms of no one since her mother had passed away when she was twelve. She was eighteen and barely able to hold down a proper job until the accident occurred.

"Here's a few things I pulled up off for you since I know that you're into all that weird stuff and all," the oddly cheerful voice of Yuffie Kisaragi, her assistant did nothing to actually help shift her melancholic mood this morning as it were and yet the snide remark that came to her mind was bitten down into nothing as she took the documents filled with mythological facts about the race made up only by the mind of an author that came up with the original vampire, _Dracula. _The death of the victim was linked easily to possibly what could have been the sickest joke of a hidden psycho as it were, copying the ways of the vampires from fiction and film. It wasn't the first time this had happened to her, the last time it happened nearly cost her the life she thought was broken the past, her own and yet she had fallen for the trap, got involved far too closely. Now it was almost as if everyone else was paying for her silly mistake. _She remembered waking up in a bath full of ice cubes with someone sharpening a knife in the next room. It was cold, unbelievable cold and yet it was easy to move her limbs up and out of the bath, nearly sliding on the wet surface that was the floor beneath her. Holding onto the edge of the bath, she moved over to the window, checking to see if it could open up. It was locked which was rather stereotypical of an old horror movie that she used to laugh at since they always looked so terribly rubbish and yet now this wasn't a movie and she wasn't screaming at herself to pick up the stool next to the window and use it to smash her way to freedom. No, she just stood there, looking at the door where the sound of someone sharpening a knife reached her ears. Had she been kidnapped and was now being held hostage in a particularly odd way or was she really going to die? In the end, she picked up the stool and used it to smash the window, the glass flying outwards, her hands scrabbling to pull herself up quickly as he heard someone turn a key in the lock. And the she was out, climbing down a drainpipe. Well that was until she saw someone appear at the window, which she had, come from, the face hidden by a cowboy hat. And then she remembered falling from the pipe which had suddenly collapsed from her weight, causing her to land upon a skip full of rubbish that had once been parts of someone's house by the looks of the rather jagged looks of the bricks that she had pulled her bloodied hand out of. She took one look back at the window, realizing that no one was there and that she had to escape. Pulling herself out of the skip, she landed on her feet, aware of someone loading a gun behind her. All she had to do was run, run away from her captor. And she did, even when she heard the gun go off a good few times._

That file of her account was hiding amongst all the ones on her desk along with the documents that Yuffie had handed to her. In all of her beliefs on each strange case that she had encountered and witnessed from the victim's point of view, she was sure no one had turned up in an alley, especially since it was public. Yet it seemed as if the murderer in question didn't care if someone found the body or not. When she had been allowed to analyse the body though, the thing that disturbed her the most was that not only was every organ also unearthly cold but there was also no blood, absolutely none. A part of her made her feel like she wanted to throw up what was beginning to bother her now from the inside, and yet another part wanted to keep digging until they worked out a suitable source of death. She chose the later, being mindful of how she was feeling as she dissected the heart, wanting to see what the effects of the death had upon the heart before moving on to dissecting everything else, taking no breaks which was often ill-advised but she had been really bothered by this case. Something else seemed familiar about it and yet, she knew it wasn't just the death of the boy that had come on to her rather abruptly. Her fingers had moved to her mouth, yet she couldn't feel the delicate touch of her fingertips against the soft flesh of her lips, nor could she taste the common, salty taste of her nail as she began to bite it, a habit that only occurred when she had taken on this job. For better or for worse, she had to stick out this job, even if it killed her in the end. That was just the way the world was.

Nighttime came by rather quickly and yet she was still working, looking through each file, even when the clock slowly moved past 1 a.m. That was the way to work when it came to big cases. Caffeine was your only friend which meant that she could drink all the coffee that she wanted and not have someone lecture her about the health risks of the drug eating away at your metabolism or whatever it really was. She wasn't really sure. Her mind wasn't put down to the equation of it all. All that it was really thinking about was the victim's that were now beginning to appear almost as if someone wanted to litter the streets. Yuffie handed her more documents on the details of the newest victim yet, a female at the age of forty-five, mother of two children, both male it seemed. Yet unlike the other victim from what she could gather of the results from the analysis that had been performed rather quickly on the body, this one hadn't been quickly drained but the blood was coagulating like it was supposed to. She could feel her eyes start to droop slightly, before darkness completely over took her. Nothing came to her in her sleep, yet she had been woken up by a blood-curdling scream from down below in the science department. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

With a gun in her hand, she had run down the steps, removing her shoes before actually attempting to do so, a gun in one hand, high heel yet also sensible shoes held by the insides in the other. The last thing she wanted was to fall down the stairs and possibly break her back or even her neck when something had happened in the station which also put pressure on her since it would also look foolish if she didn't suffer from any injuries from falling down the stairs and yet looking at whoever came upon her with her skirt high enough for people to see the white underwear underneath. The corridors seemed eerily quiet which was unusual, even at this god-awful hour. Usually there would be at least a few security guards patrolling the corridors and often she was stopped just because most of them didn't have an authority side, which meant that they usually tried to place a hand upon her as if it were a normal thing for people to do when talking to each other. She usually tried to avoid participating in conversation with them but sometimes it was hard just to shake off the flies as it were.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye. Beads of sweat danced upon her forehead. Never before had she really been this scared, not even when she was held up within that bath filled with ice or when she was nearly raped by the person who she was no longer really able to recall. A piece of dark, ebony hair flew into her face and she pushed it back as if it were a curtain. The laboratories seemed unusually quiet but something bothered her and it was the smell that she had grown used to, one that usually stays with you even when you were far away from it. It was the smell of _blood._ Edging the door open slightly, she left her shoes outside the laboratory, placing on the special ones that were usually kept for an investigator when they were ready to analyse a body by themselves or with the help of the analyst that was on duty at the time. This pair was a perfect fit and was rather low heeled, which meant two things to Tifa. A) Not horrible to walk in and B) more suitable for running unlike her heeled shoes. She could hear the rather sickening sound of something being torn in one of the analysing rooms and already on some subconscious level, she knew what it was. Yet she wasn't just bothered by the sounds but also the feeling of being watched by something else entirely, something that was keeping itself hidden until the right moment.

This was the last thing that she really wanted to do but Tifa didn't stop herself, not even when she saw beyond the windows on the door that separated her from the analysing room in question what it was that was making those terrible noises and the scene it had made. Blood seemed to drip from one section of the wall and the analysing table had been turned over, almost as if someone had pushed with such a tremendous force as if they wanted to escape from whatever they were being subjected to but that was impossible. All the things that were usually placed upon such a table was dead anyway. So why was this body moving and acting on what seemed like an animal instinct? That was when she…no it turned to her, pouncing before she had the chance to raise her gun towards the figure as it had looked at her with those awful, lifeless eyes. The strength of this thing was incredible and she couldn't help but yelp slightly as she felt its fangs sink into her neck. She tried to reach for the gun that lay not to far from her but even then; she began to feel slightly light headed. Usually at this point in a horror movie, she would be screaming for someone to come and save her, but this was real life and there was no one screaming for her. She knew that now. She was going to die and the death in general was going to be chalked off as the next victim of a human psycho that thought they were another race entirely.

Then something strange happened. The creature had been removed off of her by a rather forceful strength that she tried to compare to the creature itself but found it impossible since her head was now swimming from the lose of blood. Looking up at the unknown perpetrator, she squinted a little before recognising the blonde from earlier, his hand seeming to motion for her to go but she had felt dizzy and what seemed worse was that she couldn't even muster the strength to do so without holding onto something. Pushing herself up with great effort she took another look at the blonde before his voice made her jump into action.

"GO!!!" She didn't question him, saw no need to. In all senses she was gone, out of the station without even picking up her documents. To explain what happened to her boss was going to be another task that she wasn't looking forward to, however, in the end, that couldn't be avoided since Yuffie was bound to say that Tifa was upstairs working when the analysts had died from the same symptoms of the other victim's. There was nothing that wouldn't get past the whole truth anyway. This was most possibly it, where she would hand her notice in, find another job in another town but then again that was easier said than done. At least that town wouldn't have creatures that were picking off the population. Then something stopped her from her run, a low buzzing that slowly began to irritate her. The sounds of a gun going off in the background alerted her, and yet she couldn't have easily anticipated the feel of the fangs sinking into her neck once more. She was beginning to fade fast now, that wasn't a good sign. Wrenching at the creatures hair, she managed to swing it off of her just as soon as it became peppered with bullets. Too dazed from having the creature drain more blood off of her, she couldn't move now, knew that her life was beginning to slowly fade away with the blood that was easing through her fingers. Yet it was all she could do now, all she could think of to try and eliminate the shock inside her.

The creature screeched horrendously and it seemed as if this was its last resource of an attack against him but he didn't care. The only concern was for the human not to also turn into one since she had also been bitten. How much had it taken from her though? Maybe there was a chance that could simply let the matter slide. Then again, whenever he was hunting for rogue vampires like this one, that chance was always rather unlikely. Then again, why should he really care about this human? All he had done was watch her for a couple of days, get to know her when she least expected it. Still didn't mean that he actually cared. All that he was doing was his job anyway. With the rather propelled swing of his legs, he landed a sidekick that had caused the creatures jaw to crack horribly before ramming his palm up into its nose, feeling the crack of the bridge. With not another minute to loose, he reached for the sword on his back and used its blade to remove the creature's head from its body. Blood and gore splattered everywhere but the substance didn't affect him. He wasn't human and that…in his line of work was a good thing. Blue, ageless eyes looked upon the woman who lay rather dazed in the corner from the blood loss, her own blood sweet from the pumping adrenaline inside her. Now that was blood. Then again just by looking at the wound from what he could see upon her neck, her time wasn't very long. Already the wounds were healing up which meant one thing to him; she was turning.

"Come with me," he nearly demanded, his voice cold, strength lifting the struggling woman up as she began to hit and kick him with all of her might. Her strength was changing. Tifa Lockhart wasn't going to be human for much longer and he had to get her back to headquarters fast before the sun rose, before it completely obliterated them both. That was what he was desperately trying to avoid, what wasn't meant to happen. The master had told him just before the vampire was put to sleep. He was the right hand man…the one they all relied upon. It was never a great privilege to be relied on unless you were just a small, sad person who was trying to get a promotion in your job. He ran towards his bike, getting her to sit upon the seat since she was now fading far too quickly. Ebony locks grazed lightly against his face and he tried not to think about her soft her hair felt against his cheek as he switched on the engine and took off away from the police station. Now some people would say that he took off into the night but that wasn't true and since it wasn't true, he actually took off into the day before the sun rose, not the night where it was much safer for them both. The wind whistled past, picking up upon the blonde, spiked locks, removing them from their place, causing some of it to disrupt his view, yet he didn't really care. He was relying upon an inner GPS that often helped him on a job.

Then his eyes snapped open to the sound of a motorbike coming from behind him. He didn't have to turn around to know that another vampire was following them, planning to disrupt their journey. Sun was coming up and the girl already began to erupt in spasms, so what the hell was he going to do?

**Authors notes: Its so long, I dunno if I will continue it sorry.**


End file.
